Archive for the ‘Moving day’ Tag

For the third time in less than a year, my landlord decided to close down — apparently because of lack of time to handle the responsibilities this time, but once again I was in the house market.

It took some work, but I found this place in Tropical Sands region, pre-furnished and at my price. I even have 60 prims left in allowance. Add in tons of water, full house controls, beautiful landscaping around the entire sim and a long-established landlord, and I think I’ve lucked out.

If anyone is in the market for a house or apartment, check out Heartsdale Rentals; you can teleport from here. They have places from luxury to basic 25-prim apartments, and it looks like a good location.

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After my landlord at Pandora Island decided they had to close shop, I moved to another sim and bought my first plot of ground. That was about two months ago. Now he’s gone out of business. (I can’t blame either of them on this; one of the things dragging on SL’s economy is the RL economy. People just don’t always have the discretionary income that lets them buy islands like we did in 2007.)

I checked out someone the Pandora landlord suggested, and the one lot they had in my price range was surrounded by hills I couldn’t drop down — they were the property lines, essentially — and had a pond along one side that was also a terraforming no-no. I didn’t know this until I had put down a week’s tier on purchase. Apparently non-refundable, as well, or else I’m just too tired of the whole affair to try for my grand back.

Well, one of my cohorts on the Fashion Emergency group came through, suggesting her landlord, and I found a nice apartment to rent. The good news: it’s in my price range. The bad news: I may have jumped in on a long-term tenant who just missed their rent by a day or so. The place is loaded with furniture I can’t delete — including a room of kid’s furniture, and a Hello Kitty rug that’s driving me up the wall for some reason. (I think I just don’t like Hello Kitty; too kawaii cute, as in Cute Overload, as in “Himawari-chan is so cuu-uuuuu-uute!”.) Any road on that, I’m letting the landlord here check with the previous tenant to see if they’re still interested. I did a little research on the group page, and the tenant had a recent login, so it’s entirely possible. This landlord is willing to refund me if it comes to it, though, which is a Good Thing.

After diligent searching, I may have located a lot that I can move to if worse comes to worst at this place. It looks like the neighbors are more diverse than the herds of My Little Ponies I was surrounded with in Parkside, and the tier, while over what I thought, is reachable. But if I lose out on this lot through needing to wait…. Well, take a look at the first picture.

UPDATE, August 28, 2:13 a:

The old tenant is no more in the apartment. I’m laying it out as I get a chance. If I get this place finished, which I never did with the Parkside site, I’ll shoot some photos and let you see.

Whoop-ee-ti-yi-o get along little doggies, It’s your misfortune and none of my own. Whoop-ee-ti-yi-o get along little doggies, You know that Wyoming will be your new home.

— Woody Guthrie, “Get Along Little Doggies”

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A sign that all is not as we could wish yet in the RL economy: two days ago, my landlords with Nukunono Estates contacted us on Pandora and Pitcairn Islands and said they would have to close down the sims, as they just weren’t getting enough tenants in to cover their tier. I’d been on Pandora for close to two years, my longest tenancy in Second Life; and so having the virtual rug pulled out from under me again was something of a wrench.

Instead of the search taking a few days this time, I lucked out right away. Indeed, I had one offer from a friend to take up a quarter sim for myself; but the tier was far too much for me to handle on that; another friend pointed out to me a plurk that I had not noticed of someone offering a lot. If things don’t work out here — which I hope they will — I’ll reconsider that one (assuming it’s still open). In the meantime, though, I’d committed to this place.

This is a step up for me, actually, just as moving from the cabin to the loft on Pandora was. This place was just land, an open 2048 m2 lot, which meant I had to buy or build a house. I could probably build, given lots of time, but I elected to buy, as nice prefab houses are quite affordable. I did wish I’d spent more time looking at houses at the Home Expo a few months ago, though! In the end, I chose a house built by Hunter Nieuport, an architect recommended to me by another friend. The design was long but left me enough space for a side yard, while the width just fit within the rectangular lines of my lot. It’s big and light, with lots of glass. And the lot gives me more than double the prims I had for only L$300 more rent than I was paying, so I have room to landscape, and maybe even add a more sophisticated photo studio on the second floor. The only thing down I’ve found so far is I’m surrounded by folk who are breeding and selling breedable horses like nuts.

So here I am again digging stuff out of cracks in my Inventory, figuring out how to distribute it, and probably buying more furniture than clothes over the next few weeks. With any luck, I’ll show the place off eventually in photos, so keep tuned here for more news.

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I guess I haven’t mentioned that I’ve moved again, but this time it was my choice. Some of the corners and other layout factors in my old house weren’t making me happy, so I went over to a place I’ve been eyeballing — fortunately, on the same island and with the same landlord! — and the apartment I wanted was open! Not only that, but it’s L$120 less for almost the same number of prims, and I’ve actually shucked some of the prims I was consuming in the move.

I’m almost completely set up — far faster than I was doing on two-floor houses; I just need to put up some more art on the walls. Although, if anyone can point me toward a nice, animated (not with sex animations) or editable bed in Art Deco style, I would thank them deeply. And who knows? I may finally decide to throw a housewarming for once….

I’ll put together some photos over the next few days, so watch this if you’re interested.

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Land o’ Goshen, it seems I can’t keep a house around me for longer than six or eight months. And usually a lot shorter. My last landlord dropped a notice on the entire renters’ group saying that he was forced to sell his two remaining regions, and refunded our remaining rents. (I’m wondering if it has something to do with the rise in Homestead rates, but I wasn’t going to question him; the note sounded painful for him to write.)

Fortunately, some loose time and a lot of hard work later found me a house in Pandora Island with just about the same deal as I’d had. I’ve already moved bag and baggage in. But now I’ve got to decorate it and sort everything out!

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So says Spider Robinson in Callahan’s Key (or words to that effect). In Second Life, it’s not that easy; the only one who can pick up your swag is yourself. So you have to do all the toting and shoving by your lonesome.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I’ve just moved — again! This time I was compelled to by situations far beyond my control. My landlord’s account was locked by Linden Lab for some mysterious, unexplained reason, and so his rent boxes all went dark. Fortunately, his property-management group has some estate islands that are under another avatar’s name in the group, and the displaces avatars have been offered first shot at the empty houses and apartments. I found a pretty nice place for only L$100 more a week.

To be truthful, I was contemplating moving already. As I think I noted when I leased the place in Hrosskell, I keep landing in apartments on the border of sims. Well, the property across the region line was changing hands quite frequently; but it seems to have settled down, and someone’s built houses there — with hulkin’ big rotating signs saying “For Sale” overhead. Not quite an adfarm, but close enough to it to kill my view, and I was getting sick of it. This situation here just accelerated the speed at which I took off.

So here I am again, in a house with bare walls. But filled with light; I may have some problem hanging all my art here, at least on the first floor. Plus I’m right up on the water (and there’s three more islands that I can swing through on my JetSki), and a big upper deck. So I’m making the most of it in the meantime. I’ll publish pictures of the new place when I get it more fully decorated, here and on Flickr and Koinup.

I started out in my early days in a crackerjack little skybox that had malfunctioning doors on the upper level; after the first few days in residence, I never could get out to my own patio. Next came the famous apartment in Dunyvaig region, with a wonderful glass wall and roof. But the sleeping loft had a very low ceiling, forcing me to twitch my camera whenever I teleported upstairs. I finally got fed up with that, and ran off to a pair of friends.

Those friends were Gymmy and Nanceee Sinatra, the owners of Frank’s Place in Oasis Resort (Around the Grid, Web site). They had recently built a set of spacious apartments on the unused portion of their island; after a good examination of the place, I snagged a loft. This had two large circular rooms, with balconies on three sides. An elevator serviced all five floors of the block. I stayed there for a month and a half — and then the Sinatras asked if I could move to the block at the far end of the island. Due to the growing popularity of Frank’s, they were trying to improve lag time on the sim by clearing ground.

I’m uncertain if my moving helped out the club, but the increase in average population in the region didn’t help me much. When the lag became so bad that I couldn’t teleport any farther than the next island — and frequently crashed the client in the process — I knew it was time to split. Nanceee and Gymmy are good friends, and it was a wrench to tell them I was moving; but I wanted to improve the situation. Two days of hunting produced the place that I now call my SL home.

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Second Life® with Harper, Conan, Jem, Diana and Morgan

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